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Saturday, April 16, 2011
Hey y'all. I've given up apologizing that I'm so behind on posting. I'm just posting about the books I finished during read-a-thon. Ah, well.
The Making of a Marchioness
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Until I met a certain group of book bloggers, I had absolutely NO idea that Frances Hodgson Burnett (she of The Secret Garden and A Little Princess] had written books other than children's stories. Several of my book blogger friends had recently read either Making of a Marchioness or The Shuttle and had very nice things to say about both of them. Consequently, I thought I'd request one of the titles from my Uni's auxiliary library facilities (ALF), and I ended up with The Making of a Marchioness.
The story is a simple but heartening one. The main character, Miss Emily Fox-Seton, is what I have seen referred to elsewhere (rather unkindly) as 'a superfluous woman.' That is to say, Miss Fox-Seton, at 34 years of age, has neither husband nor father to take care of her and is thus compelled to make her own way in the world. Fortunately, she has an intelligent and cheerful disposition combined with the constitution of a work-horse. Emily is always amazed at how kind people are to her, despite the fact that she handles all the detritus of their lives that they do not want to deal with. In fact, the most amazing thing to me about this book is that Emily Fox-Seeton is always cheerful and friendly, but she is not irritating like Pollyanna. I think that is because Emily acknowledges the difficulties, commiserates with others, understands hardship, but looks for the small kindnesses and enjoyments that make life worthwhile. Pollyanna annoys me because she just whitewashes everything.
The plot of the novel is 1/3 domestic tale and 2/3 marriage comedy, but 100% fun. I sped through the book, rooting for Emily and her favorites all the way. I'm not a huge romance novel fan, but the amount of romance in this book, mitigated as it is by financial and social concerns is just perfect. In fact, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on more of Frances Hodgson Burnett's works for adults.
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